


driving me crazy (when are you coming home)

by grungerofgotham



Series: Loathing for a Change [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 5+1 Things, 90s AU, Alternate Universe, Getting Together, Hard of Hearing Gerry, It/Its pronouns for mcmike, Multi, Radio Host Gerry AU, Sexual Content, Trans Character, mild pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23853097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grungerofgotham/pseuds/grungerofgotham
Summary: 5 times Gerry thought he was going insane plus 1 time Michael, monster of madness, loses it
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael
Series: Loathing for a Change [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718872
Comments: 25
Kudos: 127





	driving me crazy (when are you coming home)

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically just me projecting my taste in music onto Gerry  
> title from Laid by James  
> pls enjoy ;0

1.

Michael is _bored_. Sure, there’s plenty of people to harass, to twist around themselves until they’re so confused, they’re walking into a hallway that doesn’t belong to them. Without even a flick of its wrist people start stumbling their way down an endless staircase, starving, dehydrated, never a way out. Is that a door? When had it shown up? 

That’s all well and good but it’s done it so many times, this shit just sort of gets tedious. It’s like how when you can’t really get motivated to learn to cook anything else, so you fall into a monotony of making a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner every night. Yes, it sustains you, but it’s so boring you think maybe you’d prefer staying in bed.

There aren’t even any rituals it can look in on and complicate. The Desolation looks like it’s getting ready to do something, but they’ve been preparing for something for decades, and Michael doesn’t know enough about it to go and cause trouble for it. It also thinks maybe the Flesh is up to something, but the flesh is just so _gross_. So Michael’s been looking for something, anything, to do for the past year or two and finding absolutely nothing of interest.

It’s sitting in the cab of a pickup truck. The headlights are on, beaming out across a field. There were cows in it, during the day. They’ve all gone wherever cows go to sleep now, though; Michael doesn’t know. The man beside it is in his late 40’s. He’s got a wife that doesn’t love him and a few kids that wonder where he is during dinner time. He’s losing his grip on reality.

Right now, he sees lights twirling across the sky. Michael had watched a documentary the other day, about aliens, and it had given it an idea. The man reaches for the door handle, but Michael gently discourages him, planting the seed in the man’s mind that the lights would harm him if he moved from his seat.

The man is only vaguely aware of Michael’s presence. He knows that its there, but he also knows that it isn’t the best idea to look at the strange figure. What he sees is a round-faced young man, with a kind smile and unruly blond curls. What he feels is static behind his eyes and a burning in his brain that makes him want to dig his fingers into his ears and squeeze his eyes shut tight. He doesn’t because that would be rude, and he has a… guest? In his car? Watching a paddock at 11 at night?

The man doesn’t want to be impolite to his friend (?) so he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know the young man’s name, but he doesn’t want to be rude and ask it because they must have agreed to meet here, right? Maybe a business deal, maybe Trevor had sent a friend to deal his weed in his stead.

Michael watches the man watch the lights, an absent glaze filtering across his eyes. It’s still so bored. It turns on the radio. The man jolts at the sound, but his gaze doesn’t falter. Michael winces at the bright melody of the station and turns the dial to something more pleasing, like static. Before it can find an empty wave, it passes over another station, playing something more… distorted.

The sound still hurts, lyrical phrases and guitar licks still far too harmonious for Michael’s taste, but something about it holds Michael’s attention.

_Loathing for a change  
And I slip some boil away_

Michael smiles. What the fuck does that mean? It doesn’t make any sense and Michael delights in it. The squealing and scratching tones of the distorted guitar send pleasant chills through its bones, even if it’s still technically ‘tuneful.’

Michael places its fingers delicately on the radio and feels the buzz of the radio waves pulsing from it, swirling around it in dizzying patterns and bolts of startling colour. It wonders where the sound comes from.

_Swallowed Hollowed  
Sharp about everyone but yourself_

“Oi, what station is this?” it taps the man on the shoulder, and he jumps in his seat, looking directly at Michael for the first time that night.

“I, uh, I don’t know, um…” he blinks, frowning at the radio, eyes darting back and forth between it and the strobing lights in the sky outside.

Michael shakes its head, annoyed, and turns the man’s face to look back outside.

_Sick head, blackened lung  
And I’m a simple selfish son_

It lets the music wash over it, revelling in the way it crashes up against itself and flows back, like the sea. It shivers as the sounds move and crescendo around it.

_Miss the one that I love a lot_

Michael focuses hard on the radio, both hands drifting over the buttons and dials. The song starts unravelling at the seams, bursting apart like so many pieces of confetti, ribbons splitting away from the machine in curling tendrils. Then the song ends. Michael huffs a frustrated sigh before the radio host starts to speak.

“That was _Swallowed_ by Bush, uh, that’s almost a wrap on Gerry’s Grunge hour. Gotta think of a better name for that,” the host mumbles under his breath before returning in full, “A couple more songs for you tonight, coming up, we have…”

Michael stops listening, instead it opens a door. Before it steps through, it whispers into the man’s ear, “Remember; the lights are out to get you,” and then it’s inside the radio, the wave churning it around in a complicated dance.

Michael opens another door and steps through. It’s in a room, small and wood panelled with half of the walls covered by large shelves lined with row upon row of CDs and the other half by a wide desk, with blinking lights, microphones, dials, and sliders. There’s a man sitting at the desk, headphones clamped around his ears, speaking low into the microphone before clicking a CD into place.

Michael watches him for a moment, considering his artificially blackened hair and painted nails. He’s handsome, all tanned skin, studded leather, and unnecessary chains. Michael had seen a fair few people like him before, they were all fairly easy to take into its halls, so disillusioned by their world that they already were. Michael doesn’t really… want to, though. It chalks it up to the fact that it’s bored, no other reason.

The man- Gerry, had he said?- drops the headphones to around his neck and swivels in his chair, jumping when he sees Michael, “Christ, how’d you get in here?”

Michael laughs, and doesn’t feel as much delight as usual when the man winces at the sound of it, “How do I get anywhere?”

Gerry frowns, narrowing his eyes at Michael, “You’re tripping. Can you, uh, get out, please? I’m a little busy.” He gestures to the door.

Michael looks at him for a moment. He’s more than handsome; he’s also very pretty. Long dark lashes framing honey brown eyes ringed with thick black lines, strong nose and bitten lips. His ears are pierced with several metal rings and his hair isn’t as uniformly dark as Michael had previously thought. Huh. Michael hadn’t felt this type of way since it was Michael. What a curious experience… 

It takes its time watching Gerry’s face grow increasingly concerned with each passing second, then walks to the door- the real one. It makes sure Gerry is watching it. It leaves. And walks back in again through its own door on the opposite side of the room. Michael watches as Gerry slowly turns back from making sure it left and jumps a foot high when he sees Michael there again. Michael giggles.

“What the fuck!” Gerry’s eyes are wide and he’s standing up. He’s a fair sight shorter than Michael and also… really fit.

Michael tilts its head to the side, smiling, “What?”

Gerry blinks rapidly and looks between it and the door it had just gone through, face scrunched in confusion. Something inside Michael twists up- and not in a good way- it hadn’t meant to scramble his mind just yet.

Gerry looks sort of in pain, and Michael is just about to… to what? Apologise? It shudders; _yuck_. Before Michael can do anything, Gerry speaks, “Fuck, maybe _I’m_ tripping,” he sighs, “Wh-Whatever, just sit down and don’t interrupt.” He sits back down in his chair and kicks out another beside him. He puts the headphones back on, and fiddles with a few controls. Michael takes the seat.

After a moment Gerry removes the CD and pulls the microphone close to him, pressing a button at the base of it. “That was _Lump_ by the Presidents of the United States of America. We’ve got one more for you in Gerry’s Grunge hour,” Michael watches as he winces at his own words, “Here’s _Grind_ by Alice in Chains.”

Gerry clicks play on a different track and pulls his headphones down after a moment of pushing some sliders around.

“Why can’t we hear it?” Michael asks.

“I can hear it,” Gerry indicates his headphones, “Do you want to listen?”

Michael ponders for a moment. There’s no guarantee the song will be as good as the one it had heard before. “Yes.”

Gerry looks Michael over, taking it in with his eyes, and it can see the gears grinding in his head. He turns away to unplug the headphones and reach behind two large speakers to flick a switch. The speakers begin to buzz with grungy guitars and overlapping vocals, and Michael’s bones hum with the glorious distortion of it. It smiles and puts a hand on the drum of one of the speakers to feel the vibrations shiver up its arm.

“You like Alice in Chains? You don’t look the type…” Gerry says, smiling and tilting his head curiously as he watches Michael’s fingers rest against the speaker.

Michael looks down at its outfit. A yellow turtleneck under a thick denim jacket with a pair of high-waisted pinstriped trousers. It preferred the 70’s, even if the music wasn’t as good. “The discord is lovely.”

Gerry scrunches his face up, unsure what the hell that might mean. Michael ignores him, and moves its hands to the soundboard, driving up the gain. The speakers become earsplittingly loud, the grumbling of the guitars the only thing to be felt.

“What the fuck, man? Stop touching that,” Gerry bats its hands away and returns the slider to its original position, wincing as the soundwaves reverberate in his eardrums, and the eardrums of thousands of listeners across London.

“I am no man,” Michael says reflexively, retracting its hands into its lap.

Gerry looks up at it, shocked. He opens and closes his mouth a few times before saying, “I… Sorry, um, what are your pronouns?”

Michael squints at him; this man says the strangest shit, “What are you talking about?”

Gerry frowns, face colouring a darker shade, and he lifts a hand to his ear, “Uh, sorry, um. Hold on.” The song ends and Michael deflates with the lack of distortion thrumming through the room. “Alright, listeners, that is it for Gerry’s Grunge hour. I’ll be here tomorrow at the same time for some more rock tunes, but for now, that’s me done. Goodnight, London.” 

He presses the button on the microphone again and starts another track, something mindless and cheerful that Michael potently disagrees with, before turning off the speakers and grabbing a heavy black coat from the back of his chair. “My shifts over, um… do you wanna get a drink or something?” he throws his thumb hesitantly over his shoulder, not meeting Michael’s eyes.

A drink with Gerry… an interesting proposal. It doesn’t want to look too eager though. “No,” it tells him flatly.

“Oh,” Gerry says awkwardly, gritting his teeth and drumming his fingers against his crossed arms, “Well you can’t stay here, so…” he turns to put a hand on the light switch. Michael takes its door into the corridors. 

Gerry turns back around to an empty room. He frowns at first, glancing around the room and even checking under the desk. The room is really empty. Upon coming to this conclusion Gerry looks very distressed, scrubbing a hand over his face and through his hair, breathing out a rough sigh. “Oh my god, I’m fucking losing it.”

Michael feels almost… guilty. That’s weird; guilt is supposed to be all but a foreign concept to it. It hadn’t meant to make Gerry question his sanity, it just wanted to see who was making those delightfully grinding tunes. Confusing people is its nature, it really shouldn’t feel bad about that, but there’s just something about this guy. Michael really hopes it isn’t catching feelings. That would be _very_ stupid.

It watches Gerry flip the light and cast another futile glance around the room before leaving.

*

2.

Michael is at the mall. Its shopping for scarves. It doesn’t technically need to; it can make people think whatever it wants about what it looks like. It won’t actually be wearing a scarf though, if it’s just projecting one into its victims’ consciousness, and Michael wants to actually wear a scarf. So it’s at the mall, looking for something thick and warm and eye-burningly hideous.

It finds one, bright green with pink swirls churning through it in unsettling ways, and carries it to the counter, where the check-out lady looks at it oddly. There’s a radio sitting beside her, blasting a plastic love song that sets Michael’s teeth on edge with its perfectly crafted synth beat. It places a hand on the radio, and there’s something familiar about the waves that are whirring through it. It sets a handful of change on the counter and waits for the woman to count it, frowning intently at the radio all the while.

Oh! The waves are Gerry’s. Michael’s frown deepens. Why is he playing such clear, bubbling melodies? Where’s all the buzzing gone? The woman hands Michael the scarf and it opens a door into the studio room, stepping through to find a woman sitting in Gerry’s chair. She turns at the sound of the door slamming and jumps back with a yelp.

“Who the fuck are you? How did you get in here?” She fumbles through a bag on the floor and produces a small red can reading “Pepper-spray.’ Michael looks down at itself and realises its hands have unwound from their carefully human-esque appearance. It pulls itself into a more socially acceptable shape and smiles kindly at the woman.

“Sorry… I was looking for someone, I thought he worked here,” Michael says pleasantly, and a confused haze enters the woman’s eyes as she slowly lowers the spray and puts it back in her bag.

“No, no, I’m sorry, I must have gotten you confused with someone else… You’re looking for Gerry? He’ll be in at 11,” she trails off and looks around the room like she doesn’t know where she is. Michael eases off her.

Michael looks at the only clock in the room. It reads 2:30 pm. It glares at it and it is now 10:59pm. The woman spends a minute or two staring blankly at the clock before turning back to the desk. Gerry steps through the door at the start of his shift and the woman looks up in confusion, telling him he was in 8 hours too early. It watches patiently as he insists that its 11, and she insists that it had just been half past two.

“I was doing my afternoon trivia segment, then this guy showed up, and it was 2:30, I swear to _God_ ,” she enthuses, gesturing wildly.

Gerry looks up at Michael like he’d only just noticed him standing there. An odd look passes over his face, something between excitement and dread. “It’s okay, um, he’s… with me. You go home and get some rest, okay? You’ve had a long day,” he says to the panicked woman.

She nods tearfully and gathers her things, shooting a fearful look at Michael before making a hasty exit. Gerry watches her leave then turns to Michael, “Do you know anything about that…? I’m sorry, what’s your name? I didn’t catch it last time.”

“No, I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Michael lies, looking Gerry up and down. He’s wearing a cropped band T, with a fishnet shirt underneath, stretching down his arms and barely covering a piercing in his navel. His jeans are slung low on his hips and his nails look freshly painted. Michael licks its lips discreetly and reminds itself that developing feelings for a random radio host would be _very inconvenient_. “And you can call me Michael.”

Gerry looks at Michael for a long moment before breathing out, “… Okay. I’m Gerry.”

Michael nods kind of awkwardly, “I know.”

Gerry cocks his head to the side.

“Gerry’s Grunge Hour?” Michael explains. Its body protests at allowing some clarity into the world.

Gerry’s face colours, “Right, yeah. I still need to find a better name for the show. Anyway, I’ve got to get started. _Don’t_ touch anything this time.”

“The Eleventh Hour,” Michael suggests, taking a seat beside him as Gerry clatters some CDs around and fiddles with some controls.

“Huh?” Gerry tucks his hair behind his ear and tilts his head. Michael notices a bit of plastic fitted into his ear, the same colour as the skin, a thin wire stretching behind his earrings.

“You could call it the Eleventh Hour with Gerry?” Michael says again, making an effort to speak more clearly.

“Fuck me,” Gerry says, throwing his hands up with a small chuckle, “That’s so much better!”

Michael smiles and bites its lip at the sound of Gerry’s laugh. It’s a rare occasion that Michael makes anyone laugh, and it’ll be damned if it doesn’t savour this one.

The hour progresses much like the last one, with Gerry proudly announcing the new name of the show into the mic and batting Michael’s hands away with a stern glare every time it tries to touch the controls. It doesn’t learn its lesson though; in fact, it quite likes feeling Gerry’s cool skin against its own.

“You wanna choose the next song?” Gerry asks, leaning toward it and waving a list in Michael’s face. It notices that Gerry smells really good, if a little sweaty. Michael takes the list and looks it over.

“Do the Flaming Lips one,” Michael says, handing it back.

“This is _She Don’t Use Jelly_ by the Flaming Lips,” Gerry says into the mic, pressing play on the track. Michael laughs as it starts to play. It is wonderfully discordant. It looks at Gerry and finds him looking back, smiling. They meet eyes and Gerry quickly pulls his lips down into a neutral line and turns his head away with a blush.

It’s about 11:30 when Gerry pulls the mic close to him with a mischievous smile, and says, “I’m joined here tonight by a special guest. The name is Michael. Michael, how are you tonight?” he looks at Michael expectantly and shifts the other microphone toward it, clicking the button.

Michael leans toward it and says, “I am.” The speakers blurt out incomprehensible static.

Gerry chuckles lightly, but his face pinches into a frown, pushing the button again, making sure the light is green and checking the chord running into the rack behind him. “That’s great. And would you like to tell the audience what you’re doing here tonight?”

“Earlier I heard the radio playing some shitty music, so I came in to find who was doing it,” Michael explains sheepishly. The speakers spit out more static.

Gerry’s frown intensifies as he searches across the soundboard for the mic’s controls, finding the volume turned all the way up. “Well, that’s been rectified, now, hah. Alright, now for some scheduled ads, see you in a bit, listeners.” Gerry turns his mic off. “Why the fuck isn’t it working? Literally nothing’s out of place.”

Michael shrugs, playing innocent.

Gerry sighs, putting his head in his hands. “I’m fucking losing it, I swear.”

A jolt of something hot and cold lurches through Michael’s stomach. It doesn’t want Gerry to be thinking that. People aren’t as fun when they don’t know what’s going on around them. Actually… Michael thinks back to when Michael Shelley would get plastered with friends. Okay, maybe that last statement isn’t quite as true as it thought.

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation to all this,” Michael starts to say, splintering off halfway through, nausea churning unpleasant in its gut. Just the word ‘reasonable’ is enough to make it sick.

“At least I know you’re real, even if it’s just because Maria thought you were a giant creep,” Gerry says through his fingers.

Michael frowns. It hopes Gerry doesn’t think it’s a creep. “And what do you think?” it says gently, peeking through Gerry’s fingers.

Gerry lowers his hands slowly, looking Michael over with a considerate expression. Michael sees him wince slightly when he looks straight into its eyes, and it tries just a little harder to reign in its spiralling unreality. “I think a hot weirdo showed up in my studio and has yet to explain why. And that doesn’t make any sense! Why haven’t you told me why you’re here?”

Michael blushes when Gerry calls it hot and blanches when he asks that question. Why _is_ it here? It doesn’t want to steal Gerry away through its door. It just wants to… watch him and listen to his music. Okay, that’s good enough. “I’m here for the music.” the answer doesn’t sound as certain as it would like it to.

Gerry searches its eyes for a few heated moments before heaving a big sigh and turning away, putting his headphones back on.

*

3.

“Gerry, I don’t know where the idea came from,” his manager tells him before his shift on a Friday, “but listeners fucking loved that bit you did last week where you pretended to talk to static.”

“Oh, uh, cool, actually the thing is that this guy-.”

“I don’t need you to explain what you did, I just need you to seriously consider doing it again,” he looks at Gerry, nodding in a way that makes Gerry nod with him, if only to make him leave and let him start the show.

“Sure, sure, whatever brings in the listeners,” Gerry says blandly.

“That’s the spirit, now, I’ll be out of London for the next few weeks, so if you need anything, ask Cameron, right?” 

Gerry nods and plasters on a fake smile until he leaves. He breathes a sigh of relief and starts preparing. The shift is teeth-grindingly uneventful for the first 40 minutes. Then Michael shows up. In its usual fashion the door makes no sign of being opened; no creaking, no draft. Michael is just suddenly there, taking a seat beside Gerry.

Gerry really should be a little more concerned about this. Is the station haunted? Did some really cute person get murdered here in the 70s? He doesn’t think that that’s what’s happening. Michael doesn’t feel like a ghost, not that Gerry has a ton of experience with that sort of thing, it’s just that Michael seems a lot more… present. Like it’s here for a reason, and not just because it’s stuck here.

There is one thing that Gerry’s pretty certain of. It cannot be human. Humans don’t just appear wherever they want, no questions asked. Humans don’t make Gerry’s brain fizzle every time he tries to ask what its deal is. Humans don’t have hands that feel like leathery rocks. And Gerry’s never known a human quite as beautiful as Michael.

Gerry can’t help it; he has feelings, just like everyone else, and this _thing_ is so Gerry’s type it’s almost physically painful; long curly blonde hair, sweet smile, gentle eyes. If Gerry could look in its eyes without needing to hold onto the desk for balance. Whatever it might be, and Gerry plans to find out, it’s beautiful, and he’s feeling less and less conflicted every time he feels that swell of excitement when Michael pulls out that chair beside him and does its damnedest to fuck with the controls.

With his shift drawing to a close Gerry dares to ask again, “Do you wanna get a drink? It’s Friday night and all the pubs are still open?” he can’t quite fight down the blush rising up his neck.

Michael takes its time looking at Gerry. He’s gotten used to this; it’s kind of scary but it’s also quite flattering, in a way. Not many people have ever really wanted to look at Gerry. “Yes,” it says, for a change.

“Oh. Cool.” He gestures toward the door, and watches Michael step through it. He looks back at the room to make sure Michael didn’t appear back inside it before turning the light off and stepping into the hallway.

It occurs to Gerry that he’s standing in the darkened corridor of an empty radio station with something that is almost certainly not human. His pulse starts to race, but he’s not as scared as he should be. He’s fought worse.

“I’ve never actually… seen you outside of that room, I just realised,” Gerry says as they walk down the street towards the bus stop.

Michael looks at him and doesn’t respond. Gerry knows that look by now. It’s the look that says that Michael doesn’t not _have_ a response. It’s that it has too many, and it doesn’t know which one it would rather give Gerry. For all of Michael’s intrusive behaviours, it always seems to choose its words carefully. Gerry doesn’t think that it’s too cocky to think that it’s for Gerry’s benefit.

The bus arrives promptly, quicker than Gerry would’ve thought reasonable, and they take their seats. Michael sits right beside Gerry, like he’d been hoping it would, and its thigh presses against his own. It’s warm, almost supernaturally so. Or Gerry might just be letting his presumption of Michael’s inhumanity alter his judgment. Either way, Gerry wants to put his hand there, on Michael’s thigh, just to see how it would react, but he holds back.

The pub is loud and dim, and Michael seems to settle into it with ease, blending in with the suffocating din of the place and ordering a drink for itself and Gerry. Gerry wonders if weird teleporting non-humans keep cash on them as he turns his hearing aid down, wincing at the push of voices all around him.

They find a table in a corner of the room, and they take a seat across from each other. Michael is beautiful in the low light, bright curls tumbling across its shoulders, but Gerry isn’t here for that right now; right now is question time, “Why did you agree to come with me this time? Last time you said ‘no’ then disappeared like a ghost.”

Michael’s face remains neutral as it spins its glass of beer around on the table. Gerry is sure that it won’t answer when it says, “I didn’t want to appear too… keen. Last time.”

Gerry is taken aback, “You were playing hard to get? That’s what that was?”

Michael appears to think for a moment, “I suppose.”

Gerry grins and shakes his head, “Okay. Next question: What are you?” his stomach flips when he asks this, unsure of the response it might garner. What if he had made a mistake? What if this guy was just really socially awkward and opened doors really quietly? 

Michael looks him in the eye at that, its hands stilling at the bottom of its untouched glass, “I’m not sure that you really want to know the answer to that one.”

“I do. At least tell me… are you real?” Gerry insists.

Michael frowns and a laugh bubbles out of its throat, bright and crunchy. The two expressions do not match, “What a fun question! It’s hard to say, there are so many meanings to each word. I think… in the way that you mean: yes. I am real. I exist, have done for a while now, and… the effects I have. They are real too. Or… the result of them are.”

At some point in its explanation it had locked eyes with Gerry, and by the end Gerry finds himself clutching the edge of his seat to keep from tipping over. Michael notices and quickly averts its eyes, and Gerry rights himself, taking a grounding sip of his beer.

“But you aren’t… you aren’t human, are you?” Gerry asks, lowering his voice as a waitress passes by them.

Michael smiles, and something about it makes Gerry sad. “Not anymore,” it says.

“You used to be? How did you become this way?” Gerry presses.

Something… happens when Gerry asks that. Michael looks upset for a few moments, then the image of it sort of… splinters apart, crumbling away and reshaping, distorting and twirling into something that Gerry cannot look at. He hears something shattering and looks down to see long bulbous hands, shards of glass dripping beer onto the table before he closes his eyes tight. 

“Sorry! Sorry, keep your eyes closed! I should have warned you, I ap- apolo- apologise,” it says, the sound almost as bad as the sight. Thank god Gerry had turned it down. “Alright, it’s safe.”

Gerry peaks out between his fingers and sees Michael, pretty and human presenting, sitting across from him. He lowers his hands. Michael looks a little flustered, hair curling a little tighter, face slightly flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t know that would… upset you?”

It chuckles, and the sound reverberates, but it’s more controlled, vaguely less grating. “I don’t think upset is the right wo- or, actually no, that is quite apt. What you said, it was upsetting.” It nods decisively.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean…” Gerry sighs. “Are you going to drink that?”

Michael looks down at its unshattered, full glass of beer. It picks it up with a quizzical expression, saying, “I’m not sure I can.” It puts the glass to its lips and pours half of it into its mouth without spilling a drop. It wipes its mouth and pushes the glass toward Gerry, “That tastes disgusting, you take it.”

Gerry laughs, and notices Michael smile as he does, and takes the beer. “Okay, um, can I ask one more question? Then I’ll stop.”

Michael wrinkles its nose, “Please. All this _explaining_ is making me break out.” It scratches a slim finger along its temple.

“Am I… Am I going insane?” Gerry asks, voice low enough that he can barely hear himself.

Michael looks conflicted, like there are dozens of ways it could respond to that question, and it just has to decide which. The option it chooses doesn’t seem to satisfy it, judging by the uncomfortable pout on its face, “That’s up to you, Gerry.”

“God, I’m fucked,” Gerry says, resting his forehead on the sticky table.

*

4.

Michael is lingering in one of its favourite cafes. Michael likes it because the barista makes its latte with pleasant swirling patterns. It also plays its favourite radio station and stays open long enough to hear Gerry’s show.

Tonight is different though. 11 o’clock rolls around and Michael is waiting patiently to hear Gerry’s beautiful tenor hum from the tinny speakers in the corner of the room. It likes to hear the selection of distorted guitars and buzzing vocals. Sometimes it will hear Gerry announce a song, saying that it goes out to a ‘valued listener’ and it will be a track filled with discordant sounds and nonsense lyrics, just for Michael.

That’s not what happens, tonight, however. Tonight, Gerry plays a bunch of _garbage_. Michael knows it’s still him, and not that other woman, because his voice is there, announcing shitty song after shitty song.

“That was Bobby Pickett’s _Monster Mash_ , now here’s _Loveshack_ by the B-52’s,” Gerry says low over the radio. Michael waits to see if this song is any better, but it isn’t! It’s just more mindless, shitty tunes. Still, it waits till the next song, hoping Gerry will comes to his senses.

“Coming up: _No Ordinary Love_ by Sade.”

_This is no ordinary love  
No ordinary love_

Michael frowns. Why is Gerry doing this? Maybe… he’s doing this on purpose; maybe he wants Michael to be annoyed. Oh, that hurts. Does he not like Michael? God, it knew it was a mistake to play hard to get! Or maybe it was when it’d accidentally unravelled in front of Gerry the other day that really pushed him away.

Michael sits and stews in its emotions for a few moments, letting the words of David Bowie’s _Scary Monsters_ , Rick James’ _Super Freak_ , and _Vision of Love_ by Mariah Carey wash over it until it gets so despondent and disheartened by Gerry’s display of hatred that it forgets all about the lovely swirls in its latte.

It decides that if Gerry doesn’t like it any more, that’s just fine, in fact that’s actually a good thing, because the handsome goth had been nothing but a big distraction to it lately. Michael needs to get back to business; needs to get back to making regular folks think they’re losing their minds. God, who is it kidding? That shit had been so boring, Gerry is the only exciting thing in its not-life at present. 

But if Gerry doesn’t want to hang out any more, It’s going to have to accept that, but Michael wants to at least say goodbye first, so it steps through a door that shouldn’t be there and sits down beside Gerry. Gerry is looking so intently at a list of songs, tapping a pen against his lip ring thoughtfully, that he doesn’t notice Michael beside him until it bats him on the shoulder.

“Shit!” Gerry says, ripping the headphones away from his ears and turning to Michael, smiling broadly. “Great, you’re here. Um, do you want to hang out afterward?” He looks Michael over with dark eyes, lingering heatedly on its cropped shorts.

Michael is unsure what’s happening, it’d been so sure that Gerry hated it just before, why was he looking at it like that now? Why had he asked him to hang out? Why is Michael blushing? Eldritch horrors do not blush! “Uh… Yes,” Michael says.

Gerry grins and turns the speakers on, unplugging his headphones. Tonight, when Michael tries to touch the controls, instead of slapping its hands away, Gerry takes a hold of them, cool dry skin soft around Michael’s, and puts it firmly back down on the desk. Michael’s breath catches when Gerry touches it, and the feeling is electrifying.

Gerry’s shift ends without further incident, and when he turns the light out and leaves the studio, he tugs Michael with him by the arm. Once outside in the cool breeze of a summer night, Gerry spins around, still with that grip on Michael’s arm, twists his other hand in the collar of Michael’s shirt, and pulls it down to smash their mouths together. Michael watches in shock as Gerry’s eyes flutter closed, shadow of his lashes spilling dark across his cheekbones, tan skin orange in the harsh light of the streetlamp, brows pinched together and fingers digging urgently into its shoulder. Does this mean that Gerry doesn’t hate it? After a moment Michael relaxes and returns the kiss, tilting its head and bringing its hands up tentatively to bring Gerry in by the waist.

Gerry goes willingly, pressing Michael against a wall and kissing him furiously. Michael is having trouble keeping up with the wet slide of Gerry’s lips and tongue, tripping over his lip ring and letting its hands slowly wander along Gerry’s body. Meanwhile Gerry’s hands are in Michael’s hair, winding and tugging lightly, and his tongue is down its throat. Michael whines at the feel of Gerry’s lips sucking insistently at its own, panting hot breath against its mouth.

Michael is feeling a lot of things. Things it hadn’t felt in a long time. It hadn’t had hands on it (besides its own) in years, and feeling Gerry’s skin, smooth and so human, against it, is almost more than it can bare. It knows it must not be comfortable for Gerry, it’s not in its nature to be comfortable. Michael doesn’t want to hurt Gerry; it doesn’t want to warp Gerry’s mind. And there’s no telling what will happen if Michael gets too exci-

Gerry slips a hand down and presses it up under Michael’s shirt, tripping upward to brush against one of Michael’s scars. Michael shivers and curses itself as it unravels, just slightly, and Gerry jumps back, holding his side in confusion.

“What the fuck?” Gerry says, examining the rip in his shirt and the shallow scrape on his side. He looks down at Michael’s hands, mouth hanging open in surprise.

“Sorry,” Michael mumbles, pulling itself back in. God, what an idiot. Gerry will never like it now.

“It’s okay, it’s only a scratch… did I hurt you? Is that why…?” he gestures lamely at Michael’s hands, drifting toward it again, arms coming up to hang in the air, unsure where to go.

“B-but I hurt you?” Michael manages, fighting the urge to take Gerry into its arms again.

Gerry waves his hand dismissively, “I don’t care, can I…?” he reaches toward Michael and it nods dumbly, unsure what Gerry wants, willing to give him anything. Gerry places his hands flat on Michael’s chest, standing on his toes to press a chaste kiss to its lips. He kisses slow this time, keeping it sweet until Michael kisses back, dipping his tongue gently behind its teeth, taking his time and drinking in all the pitiful sounds Michael emits.

Michael pulls away after a moment, “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want your mind to crumble, I couldn’t bare it.”

Gerry shakes his head, almost frantic, “I want to let go. I’m already cracking, why can’t I have you? If you don’t want me that’s fine, if you don’t want this, I respect that. But if you want to, and I think you do, why can’t you take me?” He whispers this against Michael’s mouth, drawing small spiralling shapes across the inhuman planes of its cheek.

“I don’t want that for you, I want you to live free,” Michael is pouring all of its energy into remaining human, resolve fraying under Gerry’s tender fingertips.

“Why do you get to decide if I do or don’t lose it?” Gerry growls, twirling a finger through a lock of Michael’s hair.

Michael can’t help but laugh, but it isn’t a happy sound, “Gerry, I am the concept of losing it.”

Gerry presses his forehead against its temple, breathing slowly across its ear, “Do you want me, Michael?”

“Yes,” Michael answers truthfully, and its guts knot themselves painfully.

“Then trust me,” Gerry says, looking straight into Michael’s eyes, not flinching in the slightest.

“It isn’t you that I don’t trust,” it replies.

Gerry groans, letting his head drop onto Michael’s shoulder, and releases a muffled, “Please? Take me home?”

“I don’t know where you live,” Michael says after a moment of hesitation, giving in.

Gerry looks up and smiles, taking its hand and dragging it onto the closest bus. They sit like they had before, on the way to the pub, but this time Gerry does drop a hand onto Michael’s leg. Michael lets its head bang painfully back against the metal railing of the seat at the feel of the slight pressure on the inside of its thigh. Gerry smirks and looks out the window but doesn’t remove his hand.

Michael is still unsure of what exactly is happening when they get to Gerry’s apartment and Gerry drags it toward a couch, but it’s too aroused to question it as it’s pushed down against some cushions, and Gerry sits on top of it. It focuses in long enough to ask, “Are you sure you want this?”

“Yes! For fuck’s sake, you are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Gerry all but shouts, slotting a leg between Michael’s and grinding himself down against its hip bone.

“Oh…” Michael hums as Gerry presses his thigh between Michael’s, instinctively rolling down to meet it. Gerry leans down and plants his elbows on either side of Michael’s head, dipping low to kiss him wetly, moving his hips against him all the while. Gerry sinks lower, sucking on the skin below Michael’s jaw and slipping his hands once again up under Michael’s shirt. It concentrates hard on containing itself this time as Gerry brushes over Michael’s top surgery scars.

When Gerry slips his fingers into Michael’s pants, rubbing against it in slow circles, it hurriedly pulls its hands away from the man’s body and instead clutches the back of the couch with one hand and the edge of the coffee table with the other. Gerry takes it apart quickly; Michael comes, and its suddenly sharp fingers rip four ragged lines into Gerry’s sofa, and slice off a corner of the table.

Michael sits up dazedly and Gerry clambers back into its lap. He’s breathing hard and his pupils are blown wide enough to obscure the irises. He slides his fingers into Michael’s hair and plants a passionate kiss on its lips. Michael hums lazily into it and works at unzipping Gerry’s pants. When it finally gets a hand on Gerry, his mouth drops open with a sharp gasp and his hips stutter as he comes, clutching Michael’s shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. He shudders to a stop and eventually slumps against Michael, breathing raggedly into its hair. 

It trails its blunt fingertips delicately across Gerry’s jaw, kissing him softly on the cheek. Gerry runs his fingers over the scratches in his sofa. Michael searches Gerry’s eyes for any sign of fear, but all it finds is an intense satisfaction when Gerry looks back, biting his lip with a smirk as he surveys the marks on Michael’s neck.

“This is fucking nuts,” Gerry whispers, “I just had sex with a monster.”

Michael laughs and Gerry laughs with it.

*

5.

“I have um, a statement? I guess. Who do I talk to about that?” Gerry glances around the building. It’s old as fuck and smells like it too, but the receptionist is nice. She directs him to a chair to wait in, telling him that Gertrude won’t be a second.

Before long Gerry is ushered into a large office. It doesn’t feel large though; it feels like a hoarder’s house with stacks of boxes and errant piles of folders scattered around. Gerry is seated in a worn leather chair and the middle-aged woman across from him looks him over with quiet judgment in her eyes before pressing play on a tape-recorder.

“What’s your name?” She asks.

Gerry sits up a little and leans forward, “Gerard Keay.”

“And what’s this statement regarding?”

“Um, well… I’m either going crazy, or I’m dating a monster.”

Gertrude raises a non-plussed eyebrow and says, “Statement Begins…”

*

+1.

Michael feels a knock on its door and lets it gently swing open, allowing Gerry directly into his own living room. It’s late, and Gerry looks tired. He yawns and plants himself on the sofa beside where Michael was pretending to read a magazine, swinging his legs into its lap and nuzzling into its arm.

Gerry had been working a lot more lately, with his day job needing him for more hours and his hour slot at the station still running late. He doesn’t sleep as much as he should, and Michael can’t bring itself to say that it’s worried about him. It’s hoping waiting for him every night is saying it for him.

Michael feels that familiar rush of surprise that Gerry isn’t running away from it and thinks maybe one day it’ll be able to reconcile the fact of it being a terrifying interdimensional madness monster with the fact Gerry still wants to be around it. Sometimes Michael feels like it isn’t doing its job when Gerry so effortlessly confuses it on a daily basis with his random displays of kindness. Is Michael even really a monster if Gerry’s not scared? What if it’s actually just a regular person with a complex delusion of being sharp and scary?

“What are you thinking so loudly about, babe?” Gerry asks, tugging on its shirt sleeves.

Michael pouts, “Am I scary and confusing?”

Gerry pulls back a little and searches Michael’s face, smiling like it’s making a joke, “I mean, yeah, just look at the sofa!”

Michael frowns, and only giggles a little bit, “I’m serious. What if I’m not good at being what I am?”

“I think… if losing reality was something that I was genuinely worried about, then you would be very scary. But aside from that, I don’t… I think I like you too much to be afraid of you,” Gerry explains, resting his chin on its shoulder.

Michael frowns, “You like me?”

Gerry laughs and swats at Michael’s arm, “Of course I do, silly!”

“Oh. I like you, too,” it says absently, “Am I confusing, though?”

“Hm… You used to be, but now. Now, I feel like… I know you,” Gerry says, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

When he says this Michael feels like a rug has been pulled out from underneath it. There’s something wrong, and not in the way that Michael is supposed to _be_ wrong. Michael feels itself separating, coming unglued, unstuck, no longer a singular unit of confusion and fear. It’s splitting apart and it is _agony_ , tearing beneath its skin and howling inside its twisted bones.

Gerry goes to get some tea, unaware of his partner’s inner turmoil. As he boils the kettle and gets the tea bags out, Michael simply… winks out of its own existence.

*

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably write a second part to this  
> Let me know what y'all think and thanks for reading <3


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